A New Threat
by seventeenthcolossus
Summary: When a new threat arrives on the horizon, will AVALANCHE be able to cope? HighwintineNanaffiSherisVinnaki, Plz R&R!


**A NEW THREAT**

Authors' Beforenote: Hey everyone, thanks for clicking on my fic:) Sorry if I give you some scares along the way but I think it'll be worth it for some of the ideas I've come up with and decided to use.:) I've been working on this for a while now and can't wait to see what everyone thinks, lol. Don't be too brutal Plz R&R if you enjoy:)

Author's Warning: Do not repost or distribute this fic without my permission! You will NOT get away with it! Understand?

**CHAPTER 1 - A NEW THREAT**

THREE YEARS AFTER METEOR

It was a stuffy, overcast day in the Corel mountains. Cloud had called all the ex-members of Avalanche together, but for what purpose no-one was quite sure.

"Why are we here, Cloud?" whined Yuffie, now a buxom, leggy schoolgirl with shimmering eyes of cerulean cornflower eggshell navy lagoon blue. She was on break from her studies at Wutai High and would have much preferred the warmth of her bed to the sticky morning air of the jagged, cutting, pointy peaks of the mountains, violating and thrusting their way into the heavens above. "Are we getting paid for this overtime, or are you just betting on our good natures to keep us from killing you? Do you know what time it is?"

Later in the caves.

"Wow, what's this?" said Yuffie, pawing her way through a cracked trasure chest buried under several feel of rubble in the corner of the room. "I think it's--Oh AWESOME! Materia!" If there was one thing Yuffie loved, it was Materia. She grasped the prized orbs greedily, cupping them in her slender, slick young palms, running her fingers all over the smooth surfaces. "Hey--I don't think I've ever seen this kind before. I think there's something written on them. Vincent, can you make it out?"

The elegant man with the alabaster skin and eyes of deepest crimson was best out of the group at seeing in the dark, so with a sigh he ventured forward and took the mysterious Materia from Yuffie's slightly reluctant grasp. He squinted down at them and read out the words in a voice as dark as midnight and as smooth as honey, sharp and yet sweet and oh-so-tangy. One wanted to take that voice and spread it on their toast in the mornings, to dip their spoon deep into the pot of his words. Cid especially felt a tingle at the pronunciations and gave a dreamy sigh, only to be glowered at by Shera, who gave his arm a vicious pinch so powerful in its vindictiveness he had black and blue bruises over the spot weeks later.

"... There appear to be two different Materia here, although they look much the same. One is some sort of transformation Materia, but the words on the other ... they look like they are in Cetra. We'll have to take it back to the labs for a proper translation, I believe."

"Oh cool, Transformation Materia?" Yuffie shrieked in her shrill, pubescent voice. "Can I see it again?" Before the steely and mysterious and raven-haired former Turk could give a reply Yuffie had snatched it back out of his hands and was fingering the bauble in curiosity and greed.

"Hey, do you think we could change ordinary things into MORE Materia with this? Because I sure do love Materia! Hey Red, how'd you like to be a Heal?" Yuffie sniggered, pointing the gem in the firey, blood-red feline's direction. Cloud saw the magic ball begin to glow and leapt forward to stop her, but it was too late.

"YUFFIE, _NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!_"

There was a brilliant flash and a boom like thunder that shook the reactor to its core. Choking green smoke billowed from every hole, and for several minutes visibility was nil. When the smoke parted everyone was alright and accounted for ... except Red. He was nowhere to be found.

"Blimey and crikey!" Barrett exclaimed, waving a paw-like hand in front of his face. "Wha'd ye haf' to do that for, miss?"

"Dammit Yuffie, how could you have been so stupid! And where's Red? If he's injured because of you ..." Cloud intoned. He would have gone farther in his threats, but an exclaimation from Tifa cut him off short. Red's voice rang through the room.

"I ... think I'm okay. I'm over here. Everything seems to be in working order, but I feel so ... strange. And why is everyone staring at me?"

From out of the smoke walked a man of such beauty and design each and every man and woman in the room suddenly knew there was a God above. For who else could have designed the figure they gazed upon before them? Who could have sculpted the creature, of such radiance and beauty some shielded their eyes from it?

His hair was of a brilliant, firey, umber, crimson, auburn, ochre, coppery sheen, like living fire consuming a hillside. It fell down his back in an eye-dazzling waterfall, all the way to his slender waist. Twin locks hung down in his large, doe-like eyes, the glowing orange of a Costa Del Sol sunset. His legs were long and clean and well-muscled, the calves looking like carven marble of milky, alabaster, glowing chasteness. His abs were rippling and might be what some described as a 'six-pack'. Vincent found his eyes wandering from the stranger's well-formed abdomen downwards, then caught himself and blushed at his forwardness ... and at desiring what he saw there.

Cid looked on Vincent's desire worriedly, while Shera could not bear to lay her own eyes on the mysterious man; he burned her yellowed slits and left spots on her vision like she had been staring into the sun too long. The withered engineer hissed and took her payne out on Cid, punching him hard in the gut to gain his attention.

"Wh-who are you?" murmured Yuffie, not daring to approach such silken beauty on her own. The stranger's face took on an air of puzzlement, as if she had asked the silliest question in the world. Yuffie felt such hurt at asking such a stupid question of the beautiful boy she wished she could slit her wrists while listening to her most favouritest awesome band. Only they would've really understood her pain at that moment.

"Um, it's me, Red. Are you okay, Yuffie?" asked the young man. Then it began to dawn on him ... he looked himself up and down and gave a yelp of dismay.

"What did you DO to me!"

And more importantly, why had he felt such a strange tingle when he caught Vincent's stare? It had almost felt like ... desire?

Suddenly a rumbling came across the mountain and everyone began to panic.

"It's an AVALANCHE!" Tifa shouted.

"The chocobos are stampeding!" Cloud noted, suddenly, in fear. "If we stay here we'll be crushed to death and buried alive! Let's get out of here!" he said, and began running, everyone following him as the tunnel began to collapse and rain down dust and smoke on them. As they got out they could see the mountain collapsing in flames behind them, rocks and lava raining down around their ears and singeing their clothes.

"Everyone down, here it comes!" Cloud shouted as the mountain began to slip and fall off from under them. They held hands and went to the edge and jumped as it completey fell down and collapsed and they rolled out of the way of the debris as everything went dark with the dust and was lit up by the flames. The whole earth was shaking and they had to keep running to dodge the boulders falling from the top of the mountain as it came down so they hid in a ravine as the lava poured next to them.

"Ice 3!" Vincent shouted and froze the lava that was coming straight for them as they looked for a way out. "That'll hold it for a moment!" he said already able to see the moleten rock reforming to hit them again.

"Wait, I can see a crack in the mountain!" Yuffie said, standing up.

"So?" Cloud shouted.

"Yeah! She's right!" Tifa said over the explosions. "If we all combine our materia we'll be able to split it right in two down that crack!"

"It just might work!" Barret said.

"Qucik, let's combine materia and get ready to cast together." Cloud said unequipping his materia from the sword and pushing it out at the end of his arms towards the middle of the circle they were standing in. Everyone else did the same, unequpiing the materia globes from their weapons and pushing them out at the end of their arms towards the middle. Even Yuffie, who knew this was no time for jokes because of the peril.

"We'd better make it quick," Vincent said, darkly.

"Yeah," Tifa agreed, "we're only goonna get one shot at this and we haven't got much time."

"But we'd better get it damn right!" shouted Cid, really angry.

"Oh god please," Yuffie said, squeezing her rbight eyes shut as they all rubbed the materia together in the middle of the circle. "I can't take much more, I can feel it!" She said, holding out the mysterious materia in the circle without realising it. The materia began to glow and the glow turned into wall that surrounded them.

"What's happenin!" Barret shouted as they began to lift off the ground just in time as the lava and boulders crushed where they were standing.

"Keep concentrating!" Cloud shouted through the smoke as they blasted higher and higher and began glowing with the power they were getting.

"Here it comes! Get ready!" They shouted as they got higher and could feel it bulding.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!"

--

Later that day back at the ranch everyone was sitting down to tea and discussing what had happened back at the abandoned mines.

"Wao, that was pretty scary back there," Cid said.

"Yeah, I almost thought we were an AVALANCHE crush!" Yuffie said and everyone laughed. "OOh!" she said as she felt a bulge in her shorts. Reaching down inside them she pulled out the hardness that was making her squirm in her big socks and short top. "Hey! The other materia too! In all the excitement we forgot to translate it!"

"Wow!" Everyone said, leaning in at the shiny surface Yuffie was cradling in her lap, squeezing it between her milky thighs.

"Sure is shiny!" someone said, they all turned and realised it was Red, blushing furiously as everyone turned to look at him. "I mean, ahem, excuse me!" he said as he turned away into the corner and looked to Cid as if he was about to cry.

Cid felt a pang of sorrow in his chest at the boy's pain, wanting to go across and comfort him, but knowing that Shera's dark smouldering unlidded eye watched him from the top of her dark, leggy tower.

"Hey!" Shera said, sensing Cid's turmoil, and hitting him in the shoulder. Cid slumped to the floor and bit his lip to hold back the tears from cascading down his smooth, white cheeks. Then she was towering over him with her balled up fists and hissing. "If I ever see you looking at anyone else like that again you'll taste the back of my right hand. Do you understand!"

Everyone was looking at her, shocked.

"Hey, things are hella tense right now, it's okay," Cloud said, standing up next to Vincent.

"Yeah, we should go out and have a good time! It'll help us relax. Let's all go the Gold Saucer right now!"

"YEAH!"

--

When they were standing at the foot of the Gold Saucer Cloud was the first to see the car coming.

"Look out!" He shouted. "Here it comes!" as the car glided up next to them and they all got on. They had their tickets from their earlier adventures and went inside.

"Wow cor, it's just as exciting as I always remembered, but such a long way up the apples and peaches," Barret said, slipping into the dialect everyone had picked up he now spoke with since the rebuilding of his home town.

"I wonder where we should go first?" everyone wondered and looked at all the holes they could explore.

Yuffie and Red decided to go on the Gondola to look at the wodnerful view. Cloud and Barret decided to go on the arcade games. Vincent, Cid and Shera decided to go to the chocobo races after Shera said she wanted to gamble.Cid and Vincent didn't like the idea much but went along with it because they wanted to have a good time too.

When they got up there the races were just beginning,. Tjhey sat down beside eht tracka nd looked at all the big birds. Some of them were red and some of them were black and some of them were blue and some of them were green and some of them were oragnce and some of them were golden and heck some were'nt even chocbos at all, Shera seemed to think to herslef, excited"!

"Quick gimme something to pawn for gil" she said to Cid, turning and snarling at him so much that he recoiled into Vincent's cape momentarrily.

"But all I have is this ring Vincent gave me!" Cid said looking down at his delicate fingers and gazing upon the goldren prize that awaited him there. A ruby ring, red as Vincent's bloodhsot eeyes and capes. He had given it to him many years ago after their adventires when he took it from the body of a dead dragon that had been killed in the North Crater. He remembered well the moment when Vincent plucked up the courage to give it to him, mon that starlit night. He still turned his face away and blushed a little bit not like the tough pilot he was and he swore at himself, when he remembered slipping his finger into that tight band as if it were made for him - something that was greater than words and could not be expressed in the mere languega of mortals.

So he was sad to have to give it up.

"I don't care if Moses gave it to you! Gimme the ring!" Shera growled, taking on a hulking form as she towered over Cid and threatened him with her low voice and tight fists. She hit him and snatched it away, turning it into a handful of gil that she bet on the chocobos while Cid sat and stared into space. He felt too sad to sit there and watch the big colourful birds as they ran around their track fed on the bones of the gift which CVincent had bequeathed to him so many years ago and he had treasured ever since in secret.

Suddenly there was a comforting hand on his thigh and he looked up to see Vincent, hurt.

"You know it was only an object." Vincent said in his usual mystious manner. "Objects can be bought and sold and burned, but some things can never be bought or sold!" Cid felt himself hypnotised and reassured by the dark stranger's words. He began to lose himself in that gaze and leaned forward inch by inch, closer to the miouth that spoke such truths. Suddenly:

"GRR, I lost!" Shera screamed and barged into them, angry, turning her piercing eye on them until Cid looked away.

"LEts get out of here," Vincent said quietly to Cid as Shera stormed off into the chocobos as they warked and caught their breath.

"Yeah!" Cid said, taking Vincent's metallic hand and walking out with him away from the chocobos. His heart was racing but he felt safe. Suddenly outside they got the shock of their lives:

"AERIS?"

--

Authors Afternote: Hey everyone :) Thanks for reading the firts chapter, sorry if I gave you some scares back there but I think it was worth it to make Red a bishie, ne? ;) I don't think I've ever seen that done before in a FF7 fic, which is a shame. A friend of mine came up with that idea and wanted me to write it so here it is (I hope your happy about this, GoldSerenity, lol! ). Stay tuned for chapter two when the gang meet up with an old friend and take a wild vacation down to the Costa Del Sol:) Chapter 2: Serenity In Sunbedz, coming very soon!

Oh and if you liked this chapter please R&R and I'll get back to you at the end of the next chapter with some author feedback to your comments:) Thanks again everyone. Ja ne!


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